Sign Up For Rod Dreher Conversation On The Release of “The Benedict Option”

Here is a letter to me notifying me of this livestream conversation with Rod Dreher next Thursday.

Dear Donald,

In just under one week, on March 16 at 6:00pm EST, we’ll invite you to watch the livestream of our gathering in New York City for a conversation on community, counterculture, and Christianity’s future in the West, on the occasion of the release of Rod Dreher’s book The Benedict Option.

Dreher will propose a strategy for building up communities of faith that are robust enough to flourish in a hostile culture. A panel of respondents will probe what the Benedict Option means – and how it looks in practice. Panelists will include First Things editor R.R. Reno; New York Times columnist Ross Douthat; Jacqueline Rivers, Executive Director of the Seymour Institute on Black Church and Policy Studies; and Randall Gauger, bishop of the Bruderhof communities in the United States. I will moderate.

You may have already read my interview with Dreher. As you begin to reflect on these things yourself in preparation for this gathering, I invite you to read as well my interview with theologian Stanley Hauerwas, which touches directly on Dreher’s work. The upcoming public discussion comes at a crucial time for the Church in America, and we look forward to a fruitful and rewarding evening.